Team:Cambridge/Non-Biologist

Synthetic biology is a new discipline which has arisen as scientists have developed better techniques for manipulating genetic material, and a better understanding of how existing organisms work. In almost every case it involves taking the genes which exist naturally after billions of years of evolution and combining and changing them in novel ways.

Engineering disciplines rely on standardisation of parts and one of the chief aims of iGEM is to create a Registry of Standard Parts for synthetic biology. Teams must submit all the genetic constructs they use in their projects to this central repository from which they are distributed to future teams. Gradually a full toolkit is built up.

The work of the Cambridge team this year is a prime example of both these aspects of iGEM. The team began the project by scouring the light producer's that had been produced by the natural world. They considered a large number of candidates, including glow worms, jellyfish and a bacterium called Photobacterium phosphoreum.

But in the end they settled on three species:

• The North American Firefly, Photinus pyralis was selected because it is known for its brightness, and because papers had recently been published which suggested more progress could be made
• The Japanese Firefly, Photinus pyralis was selected because papers showed that it could be easily changed to emit a number of different colours
• Vibrio fischeri, a bacterium which inhabits squid, and allows them to emit light (a symbiotic relationship) was selected for its blue colour and because unlike firefly genes it required nothing but nutrients to emit light.